The performance of a file system may be highly dependent on the latency or throughput of a data storage device on which the file system is based. Solid state devices may offer good read performance, good random access speed, and low energy consumption in providing storage services. However, data throughput of the solid state device may be limited by the throughput of the interface (e.g., USB 2.0 or SATA) that the solid state device is coupled with. The performance of the solid state device may also be unbalanced depending on whether the solid state device is performing a read operation or an update operation.
According to one example statistical analysis, the percentage of small files (files with sizes that are under 16 KB) in a particular file system may be higher than 50%. In some situations, up to 88% of files may be small files in certain types of file systems. Since these file systems may allocate at a minimum one flash page for storing a file regardless of the size of the file, the probability of wasting storage space in the solid state device may be great, as most of the stored files have sizes that are smaller than the size of the flash page.